Kevin Evans confirmed his status as the country’s marathon mountain-bike racing king when he won his third successive South African title at the Mazda MTN Stellenbosch Challenge on the weekend.
Tipped as the pre-race favourite, Evans wasn’t troubled once by his rivals as he took the lead from the very first climb shortly after the start.
He used his fitness, strength experience and skills to stay ahead until the finish, where he led a podium clean sweep for his MTN Energade team.
Evans wasn’t completely alone out front, though, joined for most of the race by teammate Mannie Heymans, a multiple Namibian national champion, helping Evans achieve one of his major goals for the year.
”As the first 11km went straight up, I tried to force the split early on and put everyone else on the back foot,” said Evans, who broke clear of the pack and then eased up slightly just before the King of the Mountain prime when he saw Heymans riding across the gap to join him.
”Once Mannie joined me, we drove it really hard. He was pacing the flats and descents and I was doing the pacing on the climbs,” explained Evans, who rode away from Heymans on the final climb, 8km from the finish, and secured the win in a rapid two hours, 36 minutes and 10 seconds.
”Even though the distance was short for a ‘true’ marathon, the route still had over 1 500m of climbing in it. With that much climbing in that distance and of course the mud, it was a tough course by anyone’s standards.”
Heymans, not quite at full health and just two weeks away from his third Olympic Games, was caught and passed by teammate Melt Swanepoel in the final few kilometres.
Swanepoel’s time was 2:37:40 with Heymans coming home in 2:38:32. Renay Goustra (Red Mongoose) finished two minutes later with Brandon Stewart (USN) rounding out the top five.
Since the event also doubled as round four of the 2008 Mazda MTN National Series, Evans was able to extend his lead and, with three events remaining, looks likely to secure the series title for the fourth consecutive year.
Round five of the series is the Dirty Harry in Harrismith on September 6. — Sapa